The Bear and His Boy
by goldengreaser
Summary: It is a truth universally acknowledged among children that there is no truer friend than one's childhood doll or bear and after all even greaser's were children once.


**Disclaimer- I do not own **_**The Outsiders**_

It is a truth universally acknowledged among children that there is no truer friend than one's childhood doll or bear. No friend is quite so good at keeping secrets or providing warmth and companionship when shadows fall in the middle of the night. Through hours of playtime and nights of fitful fevers the loyal companion stays ever at their child's side. And as the child grows and leaves the world of imagination and anthropomorphic playthings behind, the toy stays on whether in shelf or in the confines of the toy box waiting for that moment when their child needs them once more.

Babar was a soft old bear, patches of fur thicker in some places than in others. His left ear was patched with plaid quilting from where his boy had long ago been teething. He sat on a dusty shelf in the child's room, often watching his child, who really was not a child any longer.

Like all bears worth their weight in stuffing, Babar loved his boy. They had been together since the boy's birth. He could still recall the boy's father plucking him from the toy store shelf and hours later placing him next to a tiny incubator where the small child lay, sickly and premature. The beat had looked at the boy with watchful eyes and had immediately loved him. When the boy arrived home Babar sat in the child's crib looking at the boy as he cried and cooed and smiled. From then on they were hardly apart,

As the child teethed Babar offered up a soft, fluffy ear as a source of comfort. When the child began to crawl Babar found himself often being dragged across the floor. Through nightmares and often exhausting illnesses Babar was held firmly in his boy's arms. As coughs and tears became muffled in his fur Babar would curl up to his child and offer what comfort he could.

On happier days the two would often explore the caverns under the child's bed or sail the boat from above. They would face swashbuckling Pirates and Dragons. Outdoors they discovered jungles and faraway lands. Babar was a favorite spectator to neighborhood football games.

At the tender age of three when the child began to learn the art of reading, it was Babar who listened to and encouraged the boy as he stumbled over long and short vowels and sounded out whole sentences. It was Babar who listened with an open ear as the then six year old boy described his first rumble, which accounted to little more than a playground scuffle. _"Darry says I did real good. I jumped on Billy's back and I had him in a head lock. He's this much bigger than me…" _The boy had spread his arms wide and grinned.

But like all boys, Ponyboy Curtis had to grow up. he could not stay a child forever. At the age of eleven, spurred on by the jeering and sarcastic remarks of his friends, Ponyboy removed Babar from the bed and placed him on the shelf. It was a disheartening moment for Babar and indeed for Ponyboy as well. For as he sat alone on the shelf, only a baseball for company Babar could see the boy reach out for him, whimpering, grasping only the quilt of the bed. The separation became easier for them both but Babar still sat on the shelf, black button eyes glancing at his boy.

Babar often felt a twinge of sorrow that he could not comfort the boy in his hours of need. When the boy was thirteen he ran into the room and flung himself on the bed. Indeed Babar had not seen the child so distraught in years. The boy sobbed and sobbed. It was not until the boy's brother, the happy creature Babar knew as Sodapop, came in that the bear discerned the truth. The man he knew as Daddy, who had brought the two together, and the woman known as mommy who often held Babar and his boy in her lap had died.

Now bears had little understanding of death, except that it meant those they knew and had grown to love would be there no more, but Babar did know his boy needed him, and yet Babar could do nothing to help, for the boy did not remove him from the shelf.

He listened in the dark of the night to the boy's screams of terror as he awakened from a nightmare. Babar recalled the boy's younger days. The child would clutch Babar to his chest and drip salty tears onto his fury chest. Then he would pad his tiny feet in a run to either his parent's bed or the room belonging to his older brother. But Babar had been replaced. Ponyboy no longer reached for him but instead curled into his brother's much larger chest. It was Sodapop sharing the bed now. There was no room for Babar, night after night as the terrible dreams returned.

As the months past, the dreams quieted but trouble soon returned. Babar recalled hearing the yelling voices of his boy and his boy's older brother. For days on end, after that, he saw no sign of the boy he so loved. Every night Sodapop would come into the room, sleepless and aged. Babar would watch curiously as he cried. For a moment in time Babar wondered if his boy had joined his parent's in death; but when the boy returned he found this not to be true, instead there were others whose life took such a course. The dark haired boy with bruises more often than not somewhere upon his body, the one who Ponyboy often had handed Babar too in years past _"Here Johnny, you can hold him. Babar will make it better."_, and the pale faced boy who even the bear had been wary of,had both died. As Ponyboy slipped into a depression, there was nothing the poor bear could do for the boy, who did not reach out for his old friend.

And so the years went. He watched as his boy left, as so many children do, for college. Once again Babar was left behind to sit on the dusty shelf, watching and waiting. It was a rather sad existence and the bear could not help but feel a little bitter at his treatment, for had he not stayed by the boy's side for many a year, had he not loved his boy?

Then it happened. His boy, now a man stepped into the room. He gingerly took Babar from the shelf and lightly rubbed his hands against stiffening fur. A smile tugged at the man's face. He looked into the hallway to see if it was empty and for a moment, a single moment he hugged Babar to his chest. Then he brought Babar into the living room, a place Babar had not expected to see again.

"Here he is, are you sure you can fix him Sue?"

Babar's eyes settled on a brunet woman in blue jeans and a long t-shirt. The woman smiled. "Honey, I work at an Antique toy store, I think I know how to fix a teddy bear," The woman's eyes twinkled as she took Babar from his boy's hands. Her smile grew wider as she added, "You know it's kind of sweet, the way you still care about this old bear."

Babar's button eyes gazed at Ponyboy as he blushed, ears flushing red. "I've had him since the day I was born, my father gave him to me."

The woman gave Babar, a gentle hug. "I'll take good care of him," and she did. Babar felt a slight tear in his back and new stuffing was placed in his belly, legs and toes. The fur on his left ear was sewed back on and new patches of brown fuzz spread across his body. His nose and mouth seemed to grow as a black threaded needle weaved its way back and forth over his body. Babar was blinded for a moment as his eyes were removed and replaced.

When this was all down he was handed once more to his now grown boy. Ponyboy's eyes twinkled and for the first time, in many years, Babar felt young again, loved by his child. Ponyboy gave Babar a quick squeeze and they left the room. Babar found himself in a brightly painted room with a crib. Gently, he was lowered down to face a tiny little baby with growing peach fuzz around his head. "This is Johnny, Babar, take good care of him." Ponyboy gently stroked the sleeping child's cheek. "Johnny, this is Babar, he's a good bear. You're going to be good friends." After all, a child never has a friend quite like their teddy bear.

**I got this idea at two o'clock in the morning one day last week after watching a Christmas Snowden and Raggedy Anne, Andy Special on YouTube. After all, even greasers were once little children. **


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